


The Case of the Mauled Ringmaster

by alexcat



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Case Fic, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Pre-Relationship, murder case
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:47:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27680243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexcat/pseuds/alexcat
Summary: Things in London are quite the same as they were in New York, except Joan may be in love.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/Joan Watson (Elementary)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 39
Collections: Holmestice Exchange - Winter 2020





	The Case of the Mauled Ringmaster

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PhoenixFalls](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhoenixFalls/gifts).



> Based on _The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger_

It took a while after Joan Watson moved to London to come to the conclusion that she might really be in love with Sherlock. When she looked back, it was hard to believe all she’d been through with him. He was certainly the most difficult man she knew, but who else would confess to murder when he was innocent just to save her? 

There he was, banging on the wall again. 

“Turn that infernal noise off!” he yelled. 

She smiled. It was her vacuum. She dropped a planter and there was dirt all over the floor. She paid him no mind and finished her chore. He was a terrible neighbor, but no worse than he’d been as a housemate. He still sometimes walked in while she was sleeping and started talking to her just like he did back in New York.

She put the vacuum in the closet and went to the kitchen to make tea. He’d be over in a moment to share a cup and a few minutes with her. She stopped in front of the hall mirror on the way and looked at herself. She was too old to fall in love again, wasn’t she? And with her best friend? She shook her head at herself. 

He tapped on the front door and she let him in. 

“Must you be so noisy?” 

“I dropped a planter and there was dirt on the floor. What was I supposed to do?” 

“Use a broom.” 

She poured his tea and watched him put sugar and milk in. She drank her hot tea black, like many Americans did and knew she could never get his quite right so she always let him do it himself.

“Were you working?” she asked him. They did investigations here, much as they had in the states. Most of them were easy cases that didn’t even need professional help. Sherlock usually pawned them off on her, which actually was all right with her. She still worked on the hard ones with him and Scotland Yard. 

“I was talking to a Baron who has lost his horse.”

“Lost his horse? How do you lose a horse?”

“His wife left him and took the horse. He didn’t seem to notice that his wife was gone but the horse, he noticed.”

She smiled and sipped her tea. “What did he want you to do?” 

“Find his horse.” 

She laughed. “Of course.” 

“But Scotland Yard called. They need our help,” he told her. 

She felt that thrill that she always felt when they were on a case. “A murder?” 

“What else? I do grow weary of searching for lost equines.”

“What sort of murder?”

“Lions,” he said, as if they investigated a murder involving lions every single day.

“Lions?”

He nodded. “Lion, actually. A circus owner was mauled to death and his wife was disfigured. It’s a cold case. It happened a few years ago.” 

“And it’s a murder investigation?” 

“Well, he appeared to be hit over the head with something other than a lion’s paw.” 

The Uber she’d called to drive them to the police station drove up and they both got in the back seat. 

“Scotland Yard?” the driver asked, as she’d driven them before.

“Indeed,” Sherlock said to the pink-haired young woman who nodded and took off. 

Joan gazed out the window on their drive. It seemed like a dream sometimes, living here in London as Holmes’ next-door neighbor and playing detective with him every day. She looked at Sherlock as he sat in repose. He was not a handsome man, she supposed, but she’d come to love his face, that stubborn set of his chin, those eyes that seemed to see everything. 

Lestrade met them as they walked down the hall toward his office. He ushered them into a conference room with a large table, laid out with all sorts of folders and papers. It only took her a moment to realize that most of them were crime scene photos and photos of the body of the murdered man, a certain Mr. Ellis Ronder.

There were no photos of the wife, though she had survived the mauling. 

“Why do you think it’s a murder?” Joan asked Lestrade.

“Things don’t add up. They fed the lion together all the time. How did he get out and why did he kill Ronder?” 

“Lions are wild and can be unpredictable,” Joan said. 

“Where is the wife?” Sherlock asked. 

“She lives in seclusion,” Lestrade told them. “They weren’t able to fix her face at the time and she is quite disfigured.”

“Give us her address and we’ll get back to you in a day or two,” Sherlock said, oddly eager to leave. 

Once they were out of the building, Joan turned to him. “What is it? You couldn’t get out fast enough.” 

“I seem to remember reading about Mr. Ronder several years ago.”

“And?” She knew he’d get around to telling her everything eventually, but he had his process and sometimes it was infuriating. 

“He owned a circus, actually a quite large one. For some reason, the circus began to lose popularity a few months before Ronder died.”

He would say not more, so she knew he had an idea. There was no point in asking more questions until he’d worked everything out in his head. Joan knew that this one was one of those that he solved by himself. When they got back to Baker Street, they went to their own homes. 

He woke her at 6:23 am with video of a circus on her laptop. 

“Sherlock, couldn’t this wait?” 

“It could, but I have solved it. It is indeed a murder.”

“Do we call Lestrade?” 

“Not yet. We must visit Mrs. Ronder.” 

Joan sighed. “I’ll get ready.” 

They visited the country home of Mrs. Ronder later in the afternoon. Her housekeeper ushered them into a darkened room. 

“Hello, Mrs. Ronder. I suspect you can guess why we’re here,” Sherlock said, not unkindly to the woman. Her face was covered from her chin up by a dark veil. She had beautiful, well-manicured hands and her dress was stylish and well made as well. Beautiful red hair hung about her shoulders. 

Joan had seen photos of her when she was in her husband’s circus. She had been a fiery redhead with a stunning body and a gorgeous face. 

“The police are poking into my husband’s death again, I suppose.” 

“They are. Dr. Watson and I are consulting with Scotland Yard. We are not policemen,” Sherlock told her and she seemed to relax a little. 

“Ask me what you need to, then, Mr. Holmes.” She seemed quite resigned. 

“Was he as brutal to you as he was to everyone else?” Holmes asked her, surprising Joan, but only a little. She had read the information about him online and in the files that the police had shown her. 

“More so. I was his captive. If anything went wrong, I was the one to blame, to beat. He also seemed to simply enjoy cruelty and pain.” Her voice was steady. “I got tired of his meanness and began an affair with one of the acrobats. Foolish, I know, but the boy was young and handsome and acrobats are quite limber.” Joan could hear the smile in her voice. 

“Your husband found out?” 

“He did. I never told my lover. Ellis said he would kill the boy, but not before he enjoyed a little torture and mutilation. He said he’d not be made a fool of and everyone would know that it was all my fault.”

“What did you do?” Joan asked her. 

She didn’t say anything for a moment, as though she were gathering her courage to speak. “I fashioned a club that looked quite like a lion’s paw, right down to the claws on it. We circus folk often make our own costumes and props so we are often handy with making things.” 

She paused and reached for the water glass on the small table by her side. She sipped carefully so as not to allow them to see under her veil.

“Ellis and I often fed the lions together. I think he hoped they’d kill me so he could collect on my life insurance. My plan was to kill him and let the lion loose and say that the lion had killed him.

“I hid the club near the lion cages and waited. We went out to feed the lions. They were in several cages in a large tentlike enclosure. It could be closed or opened to let them get some sunshine and fresh air. It was closed that morning so no one could see in.”

She stopped and didn’t speak for several seconds, then took a deep breath. 

“I got the club as he was lifting the buckets of meat. He turned at the last moment and saw that I had it. He hit me in the face, breaking my nose and making it bleed. I swung the club anyway and caught him just as he turned toward the lion’s cage. He went down and I hit him again. And again, until he stopped moving. 

“My plan was to let the oldest lion loose and claim it had killed him. I dropped the club behind a bush and then, I unlocked the door and the lion smelled blood on my face and instead of going after Ellis, it came for me.” 

Mrs. Ronder took a deep breath and lifted her veil. Joan schooled her features quickly as she looked at the poor woman’s face. It looked as if it had been eaten away from her upper lip upward. It was a mass of scars and red gnarled skin. She looked like a monster. She dropped the veil back into place. 

“It did this and then it attacked my husband’s body. They shot it later that day when they found it.” 

“Mrs. Ronder, why didn’t you get your face fixed? I’ve seen worse damage that was fixed and made to look quite normal,” Joan said to her. 

“I killed him. In cold blood. With malice. And I got away with it until now. I had to pay some price for my crimes, Dr. Watson.” 

“You killed a man to save another man and to save yourself, Mrs. Ronder,” Sherlock reminded her. “We will be leaving. You should not be hearing from Scotland Yard. Your husband’s death was a terrible accident.”

She reached out that manicured hand and took Sherlock’s hand in hers. “You are too kind, Mr. Holmes.” 

“I’m not a kind man. Ask Dr. Watson. You did nothing wrong. Dr. Watson will be calling you in a few days with the names of some excellent plastic surgeons. Call one of them.”

She nodded and let his hand go. “Thank you. You’ve given me a glimmer of hope.”

* 

“You really are a kind man, Sherlock,” Joan said to him and put her hand over his. 

He looked at her and said nothing. 

“What will you tell Lestrade?” she asked him. 

“That we found it was an accident.”

“Do you think she will have her face fixed?” 

“I hope so. She was a lovely woman.” 

“Would you like to go out to dinner with me tonight? I don’t want to cook,” she said as they got closer to home. 

“Are you asking me out on a date, Joan Watson?” He smiled, something he rarely did. 

“I think I am, Sherlock. You did tell me we loved one another in New York, after all.” 

“I said that because I thought I’d never see you again.” 

“So is it a date?” she pressed. 

“I think it is, Watson. I think it is.”


End file.
